I'm barely hanging on...

It all went to crap.

All of it. On all fronts. I let my words die too. I bottled them all up inside. I stopped putting them here for the world to see.

This week needs to be in the history books already. My heart hurts in so many ways.

I've been home alone in MY house for just about one week. I hear the creaks and the squeaks and the tiny noises in all the tiny spaces. I hear them when they're louder than my own sounds of crying into my pillow at night. I just wish there was someone there to hold me. THAT sounds so sad. I know. I have to say it though. I have to see it in writing. There's a big gap in my life where there should be some big arms to crawl into at the end of a long day.

I came back from vacation and work ate my soul. It's been nibbling away, slowly eroding it, but two nights ago, it took a big ol' bite. The worst call of my career. All twenty two minutes of it. This will scar over in time, but it will always be there.

The constants that I've had from childhood washed away like a sandy foundation hit by a big storm. People change. Feelings fade. True colors come out. I heard someone say once that no one would ever have any friends if they knew what other people said about them when they weren't there.

I even loathe the pavement on the every day traveled streets in this little town that's been my whole life.

I have an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. My eyes are tired and swollen. My heart is tired.

I know today is a day reserved for reflecting back on "where were you when you found out?" and while I honor the events of that day and the lives lost, right now this moment is just for me.

10 years ago this day, I was awakened by my mother in the same house that just became mine today. I was just out of a relationship with someone that I had but geography made for us to let each other go. My heart hurt, my eyes would go on to be swollen from having so many images of terror and destruction flash before them for the next few days. I had a pit in my stomach like the rest of America. The interstate I travelled daily were e m p t y. It was eeerie as I took the twenty minute drive to the courthouse to drop of the morning paperwork. There was no one to be seen. I had far fewer scars 10 years ago and far more dreams & hopes.

Today, I am barley hanging on, but I'm still hanging in there.